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Decreasing total natural resource input is critical for sustainability. Thus, improving resource efficiency is increasingly required at all levels from products to industry-wide systems. Product lifecycle systems and business models for circular economy, such as remanufacturing and sharing products, have been developed in only particular markets. Lifecycle processes of different products are often connected after sales, even if the products and their lifecycle processes were developed by independent companies or business communities. This study focuses on one such complex system called “connected lifecycle systems,” which is a system of systems comprising product lifecycle systems. Connected lifecycle systems can be regarded as industrial symbiosis in wide areas. The objective of this paper is to propose a hybrid simulation architecture for more realistically calculating dynamic material flow in connected lifecycle systems.

Car- and ride-sharing services are focused on environmental and new business issues in recent years. This study analyzes environmental effects of the transition from car ownership to sharing services and aims to clarify sensitive parameters by sensitivity analysis. The following steps are carried out: 1) model causal relationships between variables in ownership and sharing service business models, 2) develop life cycle simulation models of gasoline and electric vehicles based on these causal relationships, and 3) analyze transition scenarios. The results show that carbon dioxide emissions and copper usage decrease with the diffusion of car- and ride-sharing services, and that the average number of vehicle passengers is the most sensitive parameter for car- and ride-sharing services.

Reducing environmental loads and resource consumption throughout the product lifecycle is one approach to address environmental problems. Lifecycle simulation (LCS) is a tool to evaluate environmental impacts considering lifecycle options such as maintenance, reuse, and recycling. Various interactions exist between different product lifecycle systems. For example, to increase the energy density and cycle life, a lithium ion battery (LiB) from an electric vehicle (EV) can be reused in a stationary battery (SB). Considering these interactions, a new LCS method that includes multiple product lifecycle systems is needed. In this research, which assumes that a system of systems (SoS) consists of different product lifecycle systems and their interactions, flow control rules among different product lifecycle systems are developed and applied as a case study to LiB reuse in SB from EV.

A novel electrochemical sensor was used in this study to determine the correlations between jugular venous O(2)(-) and HMGB1, malondialdehyde (MDA), and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) in rats with forebrain ischemia/reperfusion (FBI/R). Twenty-one male rats were divided into a Sham group, a hemorrhagic shock/reperfusion (HS/R) group, and a forebrain ischemia/reperfusion (FBI/R) group. The O(2)(-) sensor in the jugular vein detected the current derived from O(2)(-) generation (abbreviated as "O(2)(-) current"), which was integrated as the partial value of quantified electricity during ischemia (Q(I)) and after reperfusion (Q(R)). The plasma O(2)(-) current showed a gradual increase during forebrain ischemia in the HS/R and the FBI/R groups. The current showed a marked increase immediately after reperfusion and continued for more than 60 min in the FBI/R group. In the HS/R group, the current was gradually attenuated to the baseline level. Brain and plasma HMGB1 increased significantly in the FBI/R group compared with those in the Sham and the HS/R groups, and both brain and plasma HMGB1 correlated significantly with the sum of Q(I) and Q(R) (total Q). Brain and plasma MDA and plasma soluble ICAM-1 also correlated significantly with total Q. Here, we report the correlation between O(2)(-) and HMGB1, MDA, and sICAM-1 in rats with cerebral ischemia-reperfusion, using a novel electrochemical sensor. These data indicated that excessive production of O(2)(-) after ischemia-reperfusion was associated with early inflammation, oxidative stress, and endothelial activation in the brain and plasma, which might enhance the ischemia-reperfusion injury.

A purely organic and high-spin polyradical molecule was synthesized, along the non-Kekule and non-disjoint design of the π-conjugated poly(1,2-phenylenevinylene) backbone pendantly 4,6-substituted with the robust arylaminium radicals. 4,6-Bis(bis(4-methoxyphenyl)amino)-2-bromostyrene was synthesized and polymerized with a Pd–phosphine catalyst to afford the head-to-tail linked polyradical precursor. Oxidation of the polymer with SbCl 5 gave the aminium polyradical with a half-life of >10 days at room temperature. A high-spin ground state with an average S = 5/2 for this polyradical was proved by magnetic susceptibility and ESR.

We have isolated two novel cDNAs encoding the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) type II receptor (TGF-beta IIR), termed TGF-beta IIR alpha and TGF-beta IIR beta 1 from a human fetal liver library. They have unique nucleotide (nt) sequences, compared with the reported TGF-beta IIR sequence, at the 5' end. Southern blot analysis using probes from each clone detected the specific genomic DNA fragments. RT-PCR analysis revealed a distinct pattern of expression for each isoform. These results indicated that TGF-beta IIR has heterogeneity in the structure, and the expression of TGF-beta IIR isoforms is differentially regulated. The heterogeneity of TGF-beta IIR molecules could be derived from alternative splicing and might elicit specific TGF-beta receptor functions.